The Beginning and End of the Story

Good morning. In my household, we have these things called family meetings.

And family meetings happen, like there's no particular schedule,

like there could be family meeting two nights in a row, and then we could go

for a long time and not have one.

So there's no like particular routine. But typically, we have them whenever I call a family meeting.

And what happens when I call a family meeting, typically we go to the office,

like the office at our house, in the home office, we all sit on the floor,

and we will talk about what has happened earlier that day.

We will eat fruit snacks, almost always fruit snacks at every family meeting.

I will do some sort of Bible teaching. Typically, I will read something that I'd already written.

We will pray, and we will end with a question.

And so I bought a box of questions, like a little box of cards that was labeled like 500 questions.

And so we will just pull one of the cards out, and then we'll ask the question,

then everybody in the family will answer it. and then we usually adjourn the

family meeting after that.

So last week we had a family meeting and this was the question that came up.

Who are three people you want on your team if there was a zombie apocalypse?

So I thought it was a good question. I'm gonna tell you what my answer was to the question.

I mean, I'm not gonna name the people specifically, but I'm gonna tell you the

formula I used to decide who would be on my team during a zombie apocalypse.

And I won't say what the other members of my family said, but I will tell you,

they all did something very similar to what I did.

We kind of all followed the same formula. So when it was my turn to answer the

question, I said, okay, well, number one, I would pick, we've got three people.

So number one, I'd pick a person for protection.

And I picked someone that I know that has a bunch of guns.

And so, because if zombies are, you know, all around, they're trying to eat

me and stuff, like I want someone who's gonna be shooting them all the time.

So I picked a person for protection.

And then I picked a person for provision because I figured after we like loot

all the Walmarts and the Dollar Generals and whatever, eventually we're gonna be like needing food.

And so I picked a guy who I know that's a really good fisherman and a hunter.

And I figured we'd be able to make it because of that.

And then the third person I picked was a doctor, right? Because I don't want

to die just because I got some minor injury and didn't know how to handle an

infection or something.

So I picked a person for protection, a person for provisions,

and a doctor, although I named the real people.

And then my family went around, and they pretty much all did the same thing.

We all picked different people, but pretty much we all picked that same idea.

And the reason I thought it was a really interesting question is because the

answer to this question is very different than the answer you would give to

the question, name your three favorite people, right?

It's completely different I didn't pick my favorite people right I picked useful people.

In a dire survival situation, things like sense of humor and popularity and

personality accountability or like compatibility, you know, and I get along

with them and they're fun to be around.

None of that matters so much in a survival situation, right?

So why am I bringing this up? Because today we are beginning a new series on

the book of Ruth in the Bible.

And the book of Ruth takes place in a very different time period than the one we're in.

It takes place in a very different culture than the one we're in.

And it takes place in a very different survival situation than the one that

we are in in modern America, right?

In America in 2024, having someone in your life who is able to catch fish doesn't

matter so much when food is readily available.

In most of America in 2024, having a person that's with you for personal protection

doesn't matter as much when there are police departments, you know,

monitoring and enforcing the laws.

In America in 2024, there are hospitals in every single town,

and they have to treat you even if you don't have any money.

And because of that, it becomes less important to be personal friends with a doctor, right?

So the kind of decisions that you would make and the kinds of people that you

would have around you are very different depending on if you are in modern-day

America or if you're in a zombie apocalypse, okay?

And so what I'm saying for this series is on a scale of modern-day America to

zombie apocalypse, okay?

The culture of the book of Ruth is closer to zombie apocalypse, okay?

In our day and age, if there's a drought, well, I mean, that stinks, right?

And the price of oranges might go up, and you might not be able to get avocados for a little while.

But in Ruth's day and age, if the barley harvest was bad, people died, right?

In our culture, people are not worried about like a nearby tribe showing up

and wiping out our whole village.

But back during the time period of the book of Ruth, nearby groups attacked

each other with much greater frequency than they do now.

And all of that is really important to keep in mind because as I read the story,

knowing that is going to make so much more sense of this story.

If you've ever read the book of Ruth and went, wow, why are they doing such

different things than I would do in their situation?

Because they're not in your situation. They're in a different thing.

Like It's not just that you're different, they're in a different time.

They're in a whole different environment. So understanding what I just said

will make sense of some of the decisions that are made in this story.

It'll make sense of why some of the characters in the story value the things

that they value and even why they have some of the relationships that they have.

So before we go any further, let me answer one big question.

And the question is, Mario, why are you teaching on the book of Ruth at Christmastime?

Don't you know that it is december 15th don't

you know that this is the time of year to talk about mary

and joseph and the shepherds and the manger and the wise men and i would say

to you yes i do know that that's the expectation and we have done that like

we've done that before we just don't do that every single year so if you would

really like that i will let you know you can go to our church's website you

can go back to a fairly recent series we did called planned and unplanned parenthood.

And in that series, we covered Mary and Joseph and the wise men.

And if you go back earlier than that, we did a series here called Oh Holy Night,

and we covered the wise men and the shepherds and the night of Jesus's birth.

And if you go back before that, there was a series called Places Jesus Went,

and Places Jesus Went Part One is titled Manger.

And if you listen to that sermon, it's all about Jesus and the manger.

So that's available to you. But for this week at church and for next week,

I would like to focus on the story of Ruth, and I would like to present it to

you as a prequel to the Christmas story.

Most of the story of Ruth takes place in the town of Bethlehem,

the same Bethlehem that the Christmas story takes place in.

And in fact, historically speaking, Ruth is a gigantic reason why the Christmas

story takes place in Bethlehem.

Today, I want to cover the beginning and the end of the story.

So we're going to talk a lot about Ruth one, and then we're going to go to Ruth

chapter four, which that's the first and last chapters of the book.

We're going to cover the beginning and the end of the story so that you can

see the biological connection between Ruth and Jesus.

And then next week, I'd like to go back and cover the middle of the story so

that you can see the thematic connection between Jesus and the Old Testament redeemers.

Okay. But for today, let's go ahead and do Jesus and Ruth and their connection.

And for that, we're going to start with the beginning of the story.

So if you have your Bible, go to Ruth chapter one. I'm going to start reading in verse one.

Okay. Ruth 1-1 begins this way.

During the time of the judges, let's pause right there.

So now you know the time period that this happens in. In fact,

this is what I was talking about earlier when I said it was a very different

situation. It was a very different time period than the one that we're in, okay?

This was 3,000 years ago, so a much more primitive time. There are no police

departments. There is no welfare.

There are no hospitals, and it was a dark time in Israel's history as well.

Like, I mean, the whole world was more primitive everywhere in the world,

but then during the time of the judges in Israel was like a spiritually dark time.

If you've ever read through the book of Judges, sometimes it's hard to get through

because there's so much terrible stuff in it.

People of God who are like turned

away from God and bad things that are happening to them because of it.

There's no king in the land at this time, just temporary leaders that called judges.

And the neighboring nations that are around Israel, it seems to me they attack

Israel quite a bit during this time period.

So we've got during the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land.

Oh, so not only is this a particularly difficult time, but within the particular

difficult time, it is a particularly difficult time because there's a food shortage

during this time period.

And we're only one sentence in, all right? So in a really rough time,

and then a rough time within that rough time when there was no food,

a man left Bethlehem in Judah with his wife and two sons to live in the land of Moab for a while.

Now, I think a Jewish man who's from Bethlehem moving and living in Moab would

have been something that was unthinkable in an earlier time period in Israel's

history, and probably unthinkable in a later time of Israel's history,

may be even somewhat unthinkable at this point in the story,

because this was the promised land. Why in the world would you leave the promised land?

This is what God has called you to. This is the land that he gave to you.

He promised it to your great, great, great, great, great grandfathers.

And they were in Egypt for a long time, and they wanted to get out of Egypt,

and they finally got out of Egypt, and they were led to this land.

And God said, this is the land that I want you to be in.

And not only that, this is the land I'm going to bless you in.

God had said to them, if you follow me, if you obey my commands,

If you don't worship other gods, I'm going to bless you.

I mean, he essentially said, I'm going to make you rich, right?

This is a land flowing with milk and honey. And he basically said,

I'm going to keep it going that way.

I'm going to bless you in the land. All you have to do is just keep following me.

Well, they didn't always follow him. In fact, during the time period of Judges,

they did a bad job of that.

And that might be why there's a famine in the land at this point,

because this might be a time period where they're worshiping other gods and

not following after God. So now they're in this famine.

And what does this one particular guy do, this man that left Judah?

Well, he goes to Moab, that's enemy territory, right?

Instead of staying and repenting and how do we do what God wants in the land

that God gave us and follow God's law so that like we have God's blessing,

it's like, well, I'm just gonna leave and go somewhere else.

In fact, I'm gonna leave and go to the enemy territory.

This may very well have been considered a sin at the time. Maybe God considered it a sin.

I would think probably a lot of the Israelites probably would think this is

the wrong thing to do, right?

Because there was a lot more connection between spirituality and geography for

them than it would be for us. I think in a lot of ways, saying like,

I don't know if God's going to provide for me here. I'm going to go to this

other land where they're getting provided for.

It very well might be not, you're not just leaving one land for another,

but even like leaving one God for another.

So this may have been a sin for him to do this. It certainly was,

or I would say, it seems like almost certainly it was brought on by sin,

because I don't think this famine would have even been here if the people had

been following after God.

And so the man leaves, and now what he's thinking, I don't know.

I'm guessing everybody else is judging him, but he might be just going,

hey, Desperate times call for desperate measures.

There's not a lot of food here. I heard there's more food over there.

I'm gonna keep my family alive. We're gonna go. So he does. Verse two.

The man's name was Elimelech.

And his wife's name was Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Malon and Kilion.

They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the land of Moab and settled there.

Naomi's husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons.

So this is bad, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

It's bad because losing the man in the family would have been tragic.

First of all, that's just tragic all the time. When you lose your husband or

you lose your father, like that's a tragic thing.

In this culture, it probably would have been extra tragic to lose the man of

the family, because you got to remember, it's a different world than ours.

In a world where you are concerned about being attacked, you know,

like at any moment, in a world where food is more scarce,

in a world where manual labor is much more connected to like survival than it

is in our world, like in that world, men are more financially valuable than women.

And to lose the man in the family, like that's not good, right?

That's like, well, how are we going to make it?

Except if you look at this, you can see it's not totally hopeless because it

says Naomi's husband, Elimelech, died. That's not good.

But it says, and she was left with her two what?

Sons. Okay, so it's not a death sentence, right? Naomi still has two males to take care of her.

And in fact, that is another difference between back then and now.

Having children was very important.

In their culture, they valued having children way more than a lot of us in our culture do.

Because having children was not only what you did in order to pass on the family

legacy, it's not only what you did to make sure the family farm kept getting

run by more people, but you had children to take care of you when you were older, okay?

In a world with no social security and no assisted living facilities,

having children was indispensable to getting through like the last third of your life.

So she's got her sons with her. Okay, let's see if she makes it.

Verse four, her sons took Moabite women as their wives. One was named Orpah

and the second was named Ruth. All right, let me pause there for now.

So they get married. It doesn't specifically say, we know the two sons are Malon

and Kilion, and we know the two wives are Orpah and Ruth.

It doesn't specifically say, I don't think in this verse, which one was married

to which, but obviously one of them married one of them, and one of them married

the other one. And this is sort of a good news, bad news verse.

The bad news part is they marry Moabite women. So like when I say bad news,

I mean like spiritually speaking, this was not good.

The Israelites were not supposed to marry Moabites.

Earlier on in the book of Deuteronomy, God had made it very clear,

you're not supposed to do this.

They were forbidden. and you're not supposed to marry the women in Canaan.

You're not supposed to marry the men that are over there among the Philistines.

You're not supposed to marry the Moabites.

They were not supposed to marry any of the people from any of the nations around them.

And so these guys are in this situation, and you can see it from their perspective.

They're going, well, who am I gonna marry? We live in Moab, right?

And everybody around me is a Moabite woman. I mean, how am I supposed to not marry a Moabite?

But the thing is, you're not even supposed to be there, right?

You're supposed to be in the promised land. You're where you're not supposed to be.

So it's real hard to obey the law when you already are where you're not supposed to be.

Right? So they marry these Moabite women that they're not supposed to do.

And the reason why they're not supposed to marry them, in case you're wondering,

God actually gives the reason why in his word. So we don't have to like take

this verse the wrong way, like take this concept the wrong way as it has been done in the past.

The reason they were forbidden from marrying Moabites or any of these other

nations, it was about idolatry. It had nothing to do with ethnicity, okay?

So this wasn't like, if you look at the reasons that God gave in Deuteronomy

for how he gave them their marriage rules.

It wasn't, hey, you can't marry someone of some other ethnicity because you're

not supposed to marry people that look different than you.

God was not saying, I forbid you to marry someone who has a different skin color

than you, or I forbid you from marrying someone that has a different eye shape

than you. That was absolutely not part of it at all.

It was, and God said this when he gave the command, it's don't marry these people

from these other nations because they worship other gods.

They don't worship me. We don't want you intermarrying with other people who

don't follow after the true God and who don't follow after me.

The idea, of course, being you're gonna bring these people into your life from

any of those places and they're gonna bring their idols with them and they're

gonna worship their God and maybe they'll worship your God along with their

God and maybe you'll start worshiping their God along with your God.

You're gonna have kids, right? And he or she is gonna be teaching the kids to

worship multiple gods. No, don't let any of that happen. Don't do that.

So they weren't supposed to do it.

So spiritually speaking, bad news. However, practically speaking,

I'm assuming Naomi was probably pretty happy this happened, okay?

Her sons took Moabite women as their wives. Why? Why was she happy?

Because they were a family of four. Then they lost Elimelech and became a family of three, right?

Then they took on the Moabite women and they became a family of five.

So that's moving in the right direction. That's much better.

And not only is it five, but four of the five people are young married couples,

which means there's major potential for six and seven and eight and nine, right?

So I'm assuming Naomi was at these weddings like, you know, let's keep doing this. This is great.

So there they are. So one was named Orpah, the second was named Ruth.

So now look at what happens here.

After they lived in Moab about 10 years,

Both Malon and Kilion also died.

And Naomi was left without her two children and without her husband.

So we're supposed to read this verse and go like, oh, this is not good.

They were a family of four that became a family of three. They were a family

of three that became a family of five.

And then they were a family of five that became a family of three widows.

Now that's a death sentence.

So when someone like when an ancient person was reading this you know like some

of the earliest readers reading this I think they would have come to this part

and they wouldn't have just said oh this is sad right yes of course it's sad

but it's more than sad this is a life-threatening situation not only did Malon

Kilion die but if something doesn't change soon Naomi's going to die too,

verse 6 she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab because

she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people's need by providing them food.

So right around this time that they're wondering, how are we going to survive?

All the way in Moab, Naomi hears that there's food back in Bethlehem,

where she's from, right?

The Lord provided food. So I just want you to catch the Lord begins to bless

Israel again during this time.

I'm going to guess, I don't know for sure, but what was back happening back

home, probably there was, we're not following after God and there was a famine.

And then probably there was a, we are now turning back to God and the harvests

are starting back up again.

So she heard that God has paid attention to his people's need and they're providing food.

Verse seven, she left the place where she had been living accompanied by her

two daughters-in-law and traveled along the road leading back to the land of Judah.

She said to them, each of you go back.

Go back to your mother's home. May the Lord show faithful love to you as you

have shown to the dead and to me.

May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the house of your new husband.

She kissed them and they wept loudly. Do you see what's going on here?

Like she's, they're traveling along and she's going, you guys don't need to

come with me to the new land. I have nothing to offer you.

Like survival is what we're trying here. This is kind of like a zombie apocalypse.

Like we're trying to get through this. It's a rough time and I have nothing to offer you.

Why don't you go back to what you know? Why don't you go back to the cultures

you understand? Why don't you go back to your own people? And why don't you go get married again?

You're young women. I can't do it, but you can. Y'all are young enough.

You can start your lives over again.

Find new husbands and figure this whole thing out. Do you see that she says

to them, go find new husbands?

And I want you to notice the way she says it. Look at this. May the Lord enable

each of you to find security, okay?

Or it could be translated rest, in the house of your new husband.

What is her motive here? This is not about romance, is it?

She's not saying like, oh, you're so stressed. And what you two really need

is to get back in the dating scene again and, you know, have some fun.

No, she doesn't care about their fun. I bet she doesn't even care if they like the guys.

She's saying, go find someone for your Moab survival team because I'm not good enough for it anymore.

Go find someone that will provide for you and protect you. She says,

go ahead and do it, right?

So she kissed them and they wept loudly. Verse 14, I'm going to skip to now.

Verse 14. Again, they wept loudly.

And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

So Orpah gives her a kiss, Ruth gives her a hug, but as the story goes on,

you can tell the Orpah kiss is a kiss goodbye.

She takes her mother-in-law's advice and she goes back and starts a new life in Moab.

However, the Ruth hug is a I'm not gonna leave you hug.

Naomi said, now she's obviously talking to Ruth at this point, Orpah's gone.

Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her God.

Follow your sister-in-law.

So she's saying, okay, one of you has taken my advice. Now you take my advice

and you walk along just like she did.

And I want you to notice, she says that your sister-in-law has gone back to

her people and to her God.

Remember how I told you spirituality and geography was a lot more connected for them?

The idea here being is you can go with me, but I'm going to Yahweh's land and

we're gonna see what he's doing there.

But I'm telling you, if you turn around and go back, you're going back to your

old gods, right? That you grew up with.

So she says, do that, follow your sister-in-law. It was bad advice,

but that's what she told her to do.

Ruth does not take the advice. Look at verse 16. But Ruth replied.

Do not persuade me to leave you or go back and not follow you.

For wherever you go, I will go.

And wherever you live, I will live.

And your people will be my people and your God will be my God.

Notice she's making that connection with the move to Israel. Your God will be my God.

Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried.

May Yahweh punish me and do so severely. if anything but death separates you and me.

And when Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.

So I want you to notice, Ruth is obviously very committed to Naomi because she's

saying, I'm gonna go wherever you go.

In fact, I'm gonna die wherever you die, which is, in other words,

I'm committed to you for life, not just for your life, for my whole life.

Like after you die, because I think the assumption is that Naomi's the older

one, she would have died first. After you die, I'm still gonna stay there.

Your people will still be my people and your God will still be my God after

you're done, right? I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life.

And I want you to see how this is definitely a religious decision.

Yes, she is committed to Naomi, but it's not just that she's committed to Naomi

because she's saying, your people will be my people and your God will be my God.

Ruth is converting to Naomi's God. Do you see that?

If she hasn't already, I mean, I guess it's possible that they already talked

about it and she already had.

But if not already, this is the moment where she's saying, no,

I'm physically leaving Moab and going to Bethlehem, but I am leaving behind

the gods of my family members and I am going to make your God, my God.

And then look, she even says this, where you die, I will die and there I will be buried.

May, now look at this, whose name does she use?

Yahweh. She uses the name of Naomi's God to make an oath.

May Yahweh punish me and do so severely, right? She doesn't say,

may Chemosh punish me. That would have been one of the main gods of the Moabites.

No, why? Because she's converted now. She's saying, no, no, I now make my vow

in Yahweh's name because your God's gonna be my God and I'm gonna stick with you from now on.

So Ruth isn't only committing to Naomi. She's converting to Naomi's God.

And then at some point, Naomi says, all right.

I mean, that's a paraphrase, but that's what happens. All right,

chapter one, verse 22. This is how the chapter ends.

So Naomi came back from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law,

Ruth, the Moabitess. They arrived in, what town?

Bethlehem, that's important, at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Now, what I'd like to do is I'd like to now skip to the end of the story, okay?

We're going to do the beginning and the end of the story. So I'm going to skip

to chapter four now and show you how the story ends.

I realize I'm taking a little bit of a risk here by skipping.

If you are someone who is here this morning and you are not familiar with this

story, I'm sorry, okay? Because what's going to happen is it's going to be a little bit like this.

Imagine you're watching a TV show and you watch like the pilot episode of a

TV show and you're like, oh, that's pretty good, right? And then you get busy

and you don't watch it for a while.

And then one day the season finale of that show is on, and you watch it, right?

And you go, well, I kind of understand some of this, because I remember some

of these characters from the pilot, but I don't exactly know what's going on,

because I missed a bunch of episodes in between.

Can you picture that? Okay, that's what I'm doing to you. Sorry.

But the reason I'm doing it is I really want to make the Christmas connection

in this first sermon, and I didn't want to put it off till next week.

So to do that, we've got to jump to the end.

My plan, if the Lord allows me to do it, is to fill in the middle part of this

story next week when we talk about Boaz and the connections to Jesus.

But for now, let's go ahead and just jump to the end of the story.

So Ruth chapter 4 verse 13.

Ruth 4:13

Ruth 4 verse 13 says this. It says, Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

Ruth 4:13

And when he was intimate with her, the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.

So if you're someone who is not

familiar with this story, at this point you're going to go, who's Boaz?

Like it was Naomi and Malon and Kilion and Elimelech and Ruth and Orpah,

and then suddenly just put this new character just pops in unexplained.

He doesn't pop in unexplained. He's all over the middle of the story,

but we skipped that part, okay?

My plan is to learn about him more next week. For now, just know that Boaz is

a man from Bethlehem who is willing to marry Ruth and take care of her and take

care of Naomi in the place of Ruth's first husband.

I know, isn't it great? All right. In this particular case, it is not wrong

for Boaz to marry Ruth, even though it's like, well, you're not supposed to

marry one of the Moabites. But what has changed?

Yes, she's a follower of Yahweh. So it's totally fine. Now, okay,

marry Ruth. She's a worshiper. Your God will be my God.

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And when he was into her,

the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.

Now we're going to skip to verse 17, same chapter.

The neighbor women said, a son has been born to Naomi and they named him Obed.

Now this is an interesting verse because Boaz and Ruth get together and they have a kid.

And then it's the neighbor women, they say, a son has been born to Naomi.

But the son was actually born to who? Ruth. So that's weird. So why do they say that?

Right? And I think the answer is, you have to remember this whole thing about

having kids and the next kid taking on the, you know, the family farm and the

family name and all that.

Naomi lost her husband, lost all of her sons, lost any like ability to have

descendants biologically, but But when this person marries Ruth and takes care

of her, the son that Ruth has now can be like one of Naomi's descendants.

Like this kid now replaces all the relatives that had died and the family line goes on.

So it's like a son is born to Naomi, even though it's technically a grandson.

And they name him Obed. Now this is crazy. Look at this.

Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Now just so you know, David's famous. Okay, this isn't just like,

I know some people named David. It's none of the people you know, okay?

This is an incredibly famous David. So I'm going to keep reading because right

after this comes a genealogy, and I want you to see it.

It says, now this is the genealogy of Perez. And why it starts with Perez,

I don't know for sure, but it may very well be he was kind of the patriarch

of this section in Israel.

Perez fathered Hezron. Hezron fathered Ram, who fathered Amminadab.

Amminadab fathered Nashon, who fathered Salmon. At this point,

you may be going, yeah, this is a bunch of names I don't know.

Just hang on. You're about to know some names.

Salmon fathered Boaz, who fathered Obed, and Obed fathered Jesse,

who fathered David, and then that's how the book of Ruth ends.

The book of Ruth ends with David's birth, and someone who was reading this for

the first time, especially if they didn't know the story, and they were literally

learning it for the very first time, they would go, oh, that's King David, right?

The original readers would to realize this is a very significant ending.

We might just go, yeah, that's just a bunch of names. No, it would be like this.

I want you to imagine for you to get the feeling what I think someone who's

reading this for the first time in an ancient culture would have gotten,

where you get to the end and you're like, what, David?

Okay, so in order to get that, this is what I think you gotta imagine.

I want you to imagine you're watching a movie, and the movie is set in the 1700s.

It's sort of like an adventure film, but it's a period piece.

So they're back in 1700s, and there's this family that they're crossing the

Atlantic, and they're in this ship, and there's difficult times that they're

having to struggle through. And then there's a shipwreck, and it looks like they're going to die.

And then some people rescue them, and then eventually they get to shore,

and then they go to this new world, which is the colonies of England at the

time, and they're trying to make it in the new world.

I want you to imagine there's the main stars. It's a man and a woman that are

the two stars of the movie.

The woman's pregnant. They're married to each other.

So imagine now they're trying to make it in the colonies and they're in this

stagecoach. And this is the final scene of the movie.

Stagecoach is going along down the road and it breaks down.

Like one of the wheels comes off and they're stuck there in the middle of the

woods, like stagecoach on the side of the road.

And she goes into labor, right? And then imagine this woman goes into labor

and she has the baby right there in the stagecoach on the side of the road,

and she's holding the baby, and she names the baby George.

And right at the time that she names the baby George, the camera pans to the

back of the stagecoach, revealing the last name of the family that has not been

revealed the whole movie long, and it says Washington.

And then the credits roll. Okay, can you picture that?

If you're an American watching that, you would be like, oh, okay.

This is not just, I mean, I thought this was a cool story, and I like to shipwreck

and all that, But this is not just a cool story from the 1700s.

This is George Washington's origin story, right?

I mean, if this story's true, this not only was cool to watch,

but like this story affected American history.

That is what's happening here at the end of the book of Ruth.

You're reading about famines and you're reading about marriages and then you

get to the end and you find an Obed Father Jesse and Jesse Father David and

they're like, aha, all right? No wonder.

Ruth is King David's origin story. That's what you would figure out.

And if you didn't already know that, this would be a surprise ending.

And if you did already know that,

you would go, oh, this is the part that connects it to the other stories.

What does any of that have to do with Christmas? You might go,

like, goodness, he does not know it's December.

Okay, what does any of this have to do with Christmas? Well,

let's go to the New Testament, okay?

If you flip to the New Testament, which I will now do, in fact,

if you flip to the very first page of the New Testament, okay,

right when it starts, Matthew 1, verse 1, okay?

Matthew 1:1

And I'm going to read to you, this is now, the Christmas story comes up very

early in Matthew. This is the biography of Jesus Christ.

And here's how Matthew 1, 1 begins.

The historical record of Jesus Christ, the son of who? David, that's interesting.

Matthew starts off the New Testament with the same person that Ruth ends with.

He's a descendant of David. Jesus is the king, and he's from the kingly line

of King David, which is established in the very first sentence of the New Testament.

The historical record of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

And then there's a genealogy, just like Ruth ends with a genealogy,

Matthew starts with one.

From Abraham to David is the one I'm gonna read.

So this is starting in verse two, Matthew 1, 2. Abraham fathered Isaac,

Isaac fathered Jacob, Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers.

If you grew up in children's ministry or grew up in church, like those are all

names that you sound familiar because we learn those Bible stories.

Then Judah fathered Perez by Zerah, sorry, Perez and Zerah by Tamar,

which we might go Perez, that's not a famous story.

And then some of you might be going, wait, but didn't I just hear about Perez a little bit ago?

Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Aram, Aram fathered Amminadab,

Amminadab fathered Nashon, Nashon fathered Salmon, at which point you might

go, yeah, this is a bunch of names I don't know. And then maybe you're starting to go, wait a minute.

No, this is a bunch of names I just read.

Aren't these the exact same names from the end of the book of Ruth? Yes they are.

So, Hezron fathered Aram, Aram fathered Aminadab, and Nimadab fathered Nashon,

Nashon fathered Salmon, verse 5.

Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by who?

Ruth. What is she doing in the New Testament?

Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered King David.

So, if you are someone who is saying, what is the connection between Ruth and

the Christmas story, right?

What is the connection between Ruth and Jesus being born in Bethlehem?

The answer is, if you open up the New Testament, there she is right there on it.

Like how many verses did we have to read in the New Testament to get to Ruth? And the answer is five.

She's in verse five of the New Testament.

Now let's go to the actual Christmas story. By the actual Christmas story,

I mean like the things that when they have Christmas pageants and they read,

this is the thing they read.

In fact, I just watched a movie last night that read these verses.

This is from Luke 2, starting in verse 4.

And Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of who?

David, which is called Bethlehem. Well, why in the world is Bethlehem called the city of David?

Because David's from there. But it wasn't called the city of David when Ruth moved there.

He didn't exist yet. But by the time of the Christmas story, something happened.

So they go to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of

the house and family line of David to be registered along with Mary who was

engaged to him and was pregnant,

while they were there the time came for her to give birth and then she gave

birth to her first born son and she wrapped him snugly in cloth and laid him

in a feeding trough that's a manger,

because there was no room for them at the lodging place that's the Christmas story,

Now, why were Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem?

Because it's the city of David, the city of their ancestry.

Well, why was it the city of David? Well, because David was from there.

Well, why was David from there?

Because his great-grandma Ruth settled there.

Why did his great-grandma Ruth settle there? Because there was a day that she

said to Naomi, your people will be my people and your God will be my God. That's how it happened.

Ruth could not have known at that time that the decision that she was making

would connect her to Christmas.

Ruth could not have known at the moment she was saying, like your God will be

my God, and your people will be my people, she couldn't have known that that

was gonna cause her to have a book in the Old Testament named after her.

She couldn't have known that that was gonna cause her to be on page one of the New Testament.

And the moment that she was making the decision, Ruth could not have known that

that was going to cause her to be the great, great, great, great,

great, great, great, great grandmother of the Messiah.

But it did.

So I want to end this sermon with a question that I end a lot of sermons with.

And the question is, so what?

So what? Okay. So this stuff happened in history. That's nice.

Thanks for letting us know, Mario.

And so Jesus is great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandma's Ruth.

That's fine. But I mean, somebody had to be his great, great,

great, great, great, great grandma. Like, what does any of this have to do with us?

I think one of the major themes of the book of Ruth is that God orchestrates

events to provide for and protect and redeem and save his people.

That's what you see in the book of Ruth. God is a character in the story causing

things to happen for the redemption and salvation of his people.

Let me show it to you in case you didn't catch it. Like you might go,

wait, I thought it was this story about Naomi and Ruth. No, God was in the story.

And if you didn't catch it, I'm going to point it out now.

Go back to Ruth chapter 1, verse 6. I'm going to reread you a verse I just read you a little bit ago.

Ruth 1:6

She and her daughters, the she here is Naomi, she and her daughters-in-law prepared

to leave the land of Moab because she had heard in Moab that the, what?

Lord. Whoa, it turns out God's in this verse. And the verse doesn't say that

she heard in Moab that there was food in Israel.

What she heard was the Lord provided food for his people, right?

God was the one that paid attention to his people's need and provided them food.

He did something in the story. Let's flip over to chapter four.

Let me show you another verse I read to you earlier.

Verse 13, Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

And when he was intimate with her, the, what's the word?

Lord enabled her to see. So that's kind of weird because God is right this is

a verse about sex, and God is right there in the middle of the verse.

It doesn't say when he was intimate with her, she conceived.

It specifically says, and this is the word Yahweh, it's just translated Lord

here, but it's the God of Israel.

When he was intimate with her, God was there enabling her to conceive,

and she gave birth to a son.

I guess I just want you to notice that God's a character in the story.

Ruth went to Bethlehem because the Lord provided food.

Ruth had a child because the Lord enabled her to conceive.

Because he's one who orchestrate things to provide for and to protect and redeem

and save his people. This is over and over again in the scriptures.

Another application could be that we should trust God even in the hard times,

and be faithful to him even with the little things.

We should trust God even in the hard times and be faithful even in the little

things. What do you mean?

Well, when I say trust God in the hard times, I mean that we,

looking at this story, you should trust God when your loved one dies.

And you should trust God when you don't know how you're gonna make it.

Then you should trust God when you're walking into a situation you've never

been in before and you don't even know what the future holds.

You trust God. That's what Ruth did. And also Ruth, and when I say be faithful

even in the little things, I guess I'm talking about things that we consider to be little.

Ruth loving her mother-in-law unconditionally and converting to worship Yahweh,

that had an effect on future generations of people bringing blessings upon Israel

and the world through Jesus.

And that's all stuff Ruth couldn't have even perceived during her lifetime.

And yet that's what God did. And so I end by saying God is good and he is unfolding

a story onto this world that shows that he is completely trustworthy.

He is unfolding a story onto this world that shows he is completely trustworthy

even with your portion of the story.

And if you aren't a Christian yet, Ruth chapter one shows us that people that

are outside of God's family can come into God's family.

And that is good news. Let's pray.

Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to the things you do all around us.

I thank you for these stories of you going before us.

I thank you that we can see things like people having children,

people moving from one place to another, the weather and the way it affects food supplies.

All of that's part of the story.

And you're in our story as our Savior and our Redeemer, and we thank you for

that. and we worship you for that this morning.

And I pray that you would help us to be people who trust you in our difficult

times. I pray you'd help us to be faithful in things we think are little.

I pray you'd help us to, I guess, acknowledge that stuff's going on right now

and we don't even know how that will affect people a hundred generations from now,

but we can trust you with our now and with a hundred generations from now.

And so we declare that today we love you and we trust you in jesus name we pray amen,

let me end with these good words from god's word this is actually from the christmas

story just a little bit later but the angel said to them don't be afraid for

look i proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people

today a savior who is messiah the lord was born for you in the city of David. That is good news.